


In the Weeds

by halfmoonsevenstars



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Chef AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfmoonsevenstars/pseuds/halfmoonsevenstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a GK chef AU, with Brad as a pissy kitchen manager and Ray as his grill cook!</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Weeds

**Author's Note:**

> Sadly, the wonderful fanart by sakubows that inspired this no longer seems to exist, so just use your imagination. :P

“We got ourselves a new grill man,” Poke says in greeting as he swipes his card into the time clock.  
  
“Good morning to you too, asshole,” Brad fires back. He _hates_ it when people don’t preface a conversation with “Hello” or “Good morning/afternoon/evening”. It just seems rude, like microwaving a perfectly good steak to satisfy the wishes of some retarded-ass customer who doesn’t understand that “medium” means “it’s going to have pink in the center”. Customers shouldn’t get a say in how their food is cooked, in Brad’s opinion.   
  
Poke double-knots his apron to make sure it stays in place. “Who pissed in your coffee this morning?”   
  
“Your mom did, but I gotta say, it was glorious.” Brad tugs on his jacket, buttoning it all the way up to his chin like always. It’s massively uncomfortable, but god forbid he flaunt the grooming standard set by corporate. “And how’d we wind up with a new grill man? What happened to Lilley?”  
  
“He transferred to the Bayside location yesterday. You were off, which is why you didn’t know.”  
  
“And nobody told me?” Brad bitches. “I’m only the fucking kitchen manager, for chrissakes.”  
  
“Dude walked in looking for a job at 3 PM with his resume in hand, asked to talk to the kitchen manager. We told him you weren’t in but the GM would take his app. Nate took the app, talked to him for a while, looked at his resume, and hired him on the spot,” Poke answers.  
  
“He must be pretty fuckin’ good. Nate _never_ does that.” Brad isn’t sure whether he should be relieved that they’re getting someone who sounds competent, or worried that there’s gonna be some fresh-out-of-culinary-school hotshot coming in and fucking with their well-oiled machine. “When’s he coming in?”  
  
Poke heads into the prep area, grabbing a knife and a cutting board as he talks. “I’m not really sure, but I know he’s supposed to be here today, in the morning. I guess we’ll find out.”   
  
“Morning, Brad,” says James, the prep cook, who’s been there since seven. Brad can tell he got there early because the dishwasher’s already been assembled and is evidently running through a load of Lexan containers from last night’s final inventory.  
  
“Morning. See, Poke. James here knows how to properly greet his kitchen manager,” Brad flings over his shoulder.  
  
Poke answers him in Spanish, well aware that as a member of the culinary world for some years now, Brad understands a fair bit of the _lingua franca_ of the kitchen. What Poke says is not very nice, and involves the words “goat” and “fisting”, with some colorful adjectives thrown in. But it doesn’t matter, because Poke is already setting up his _mise-en-place_ for the garde manger station he runs, and all Brad can really ask is that everyone at least have their fucking mise ready when the first moron plunks his ass in a chair and puts in his order. Nothing drives him crazier than a cook who doesn’t have his shit together. Except maybe corporate, but Nate usually does a good job from keeping that douchecanoe Schwetje from harassing the back of the house too often.  
  
The first thing Brad does is head into the office and switch on the computer to look at yesterday’s numbers. It’s the part of the job he hates most, but it really does help when he’s trying to figure out how many rib racks they need to pull from the freezer, or if they should get another batch of French onion soup going earlier rather than later, or if they’ve got enough cream cheese in the walk-in for Tim to do cheesecakes as a dessert special. The idea of Tim making anything special for anyone is kind of hilarious, though, because the pastry chef is in his own little world filled with flour and eggs and an utter contempt for the main kitchen. Tim would rather be left the hell alone with his sabayon and gateaux than bother with the retards sweating over sauté pans, which he has vocalized in those exact words several dozen times in the past month. Brad smiles when he thinks about it, and deletes another email from Schwetje without bothering to read it, knowing it’ll be completely indecipherable anyway. Dude couldn’t spell “bordelaise” to save his life. Probably can’t make it, either. Why they let non-cooks become district managers for fucking _restaurants_ is entirely beyond Brad.  
  
His thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door, and out of the corner of his eye, Brad catches a head stuck just inside the office.  
  
“I hope it’s okay to come in. I won’t take up too much of your time, I know you’re busy,” says a familiar voice.  
  
Brad whips his busted-ass office chair around so hard he almost breaks it, and stares at the voice’s source. “Jesus,” he replies, in total awe at the sight in front of him.  
  
Ray Person slouches against the doorframe with a smirk. “Almost. If I were, though, you’d have already crucified my ass, you Christ-killer.”  
  
“ _You’re_ the new grill cook?” Brad asks, sort of unable to believe it. At least Ray’s not sounding all weird and respectful anymore, now that he knows it’s Brad in charge.  
  
“No, I’m the fucking president of the United States.” Ray looks exasperated now. “ _Yes,_ I’m the new grill cook. Thanks for the welcome, asshole.”  
  
“It’s just…a surprise.” He knows _exactly_ how lame that sounds.  
  
“Didn’t think you’d ever see me again?” Ray suggests, the dark shadow of what might be disappointment lurking around his eyes.  
  
Brad palms the back of his neck, rubbing it awkwardly for lack of anything better to do with his hand. The other hand is busy fiddling with a broken pencil. “Uh. Yeah. Guess not. I mean, culinary school was a _long_ time ago, Ray. And to be fair, after you moved, it’s not like you ever called me, either.”  
  
He smiles again, but it’s crooked. “Yeah, it was a long time ago. You still uptight about your hollandaise?”  
  
“You still a prick about the crown roast?” Brad counters.  
  
Ray laughs a little. “I guess I am. But you never answered _my_ question.”  
  
“I’m a hollandaise Nazi and you fucking know it, Ray.” Brad can’t help but grin, but it fades almost as quickly as it comes on. “Seriously, I had no idea they were going to hire you. I really was surprised by your showing up just now.”  
  
Ray steps inside the office, leaning against the weekly schedule pinned to the corkboard and folding his arms, with his dark hair flopping into his eyes despite the bandanna he wears to keep it held back. It makes him look oddly vulnerable; Brad doesn’t like it. “And if you had known, what would you have said to your GM?”  
  
“That you’re a second-rate Tony Bourdain wannabe and should probably not be allowed around flammable shit or other human beings under any circumstances.”   
  
“Yeah, sounds about right. And fuck you, dude, you wore out your copy of _Kitchen Confidential_ after like six months. Second-rate Tony Bourdain wannabe my _ass_. You were the one who wanted to snort coke and make a giant beef wellington just to see what it was like, thanks to that book. Lucky for me, I wouldn’t let you do it, and you had to make do with my No-Doz.” Ray snickers.  
  
It’s amazing, Brad thinks, how easily they seem to be falling back into their old pattern after not having seen each other in four years. Breaking up with Ray had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, even harder to deal with than his junior-high girlfriend breaking it off the second he went to culinary school and then marrying his best friend instead. But at the same time, it isn’t like they’d had some huge blow-out fight and went stomping off in different directions like a pair of assholes. Brad’s been telling himself ever since that it was for the best; Ray had an awesome job opportunity out in L.A., and it would have been wrong to ask him to give it up just to stay here in New York with him.   
  
Which is the reason he asks, “Hey, what happened to that saucier job in California?”  
  
Ray shrugs, the lines of his shoulders staying loose, so Brad knows he’s not offended by the question. “Didn’t work out, homes.”  
  
“How come?”   
  
“A lot of reasons, the biggest one being that the head chef and I got along like vinegar and oil,” Ray answers. “The second biggest one being that I couldn’t fucking _stand_ L.A. It was too full of phonies. Even the fucking homeless are phony assholes.”  
  
“Ray, have you been reading Salinger again? I thought I told you that shit isn’t cool after eleventh grade,” he says, grinning.  
  
Ray rolls his eyes. “Dude, I’m not the one with a Barry Manilow CD collection, so I don’t even wanna fuckin’ hear about it.”  
  
Brad flings a crumpled-up side towel from last night – no doubt Pappy had been acting as kitchen manager, because he _always_ leaves shit like that in the office for Brad to clean up – at Ray, catching him in the face. Ray flails like George Bush trying to pronounce the word "nuclear" in the effort to get it off and away from him.  
  
“Don’t dis my man Barry,” Brad says, as deadly serious as he can make himself sound.  
  
It fails horribly. He’s _really_ bad at sounding authoritarian when it comes to Ray.  
  
Ray starts laughing again. “Oh my _god._ You are _still_ just as completely fucking lame as when we were in school. And here I thought you might have grown out of it.”  
  
“Hey, you _liked_ my lameness,” Brad objects.  
  
“Yeah, I did. I also liked a lot of other things about you.” Ray’s stopped laughing, but he doesn’t look too upset. Not really, anyway. “I think that was kind of what sucked about L.A., too. You weren’t there to make fun of all the phonies with me.”  
  
“Well, Ray, you always _have_ had a fucked-up sense of humor it takes a special kind of person to love,” he says, only half jokingly.  
  
Instead of answering, Ray fiddles with his bandanna, yanking it off his head and re-folding it, then tying it more securely. He does all this without saying a word, and shit starts getting sort of uncomfortable. Luckily they’re saved by the phone ringing.  
  
“Sorry, I gotta take this,” Brad says apologetically.  
  
“No worries, homes. I’m gonna find an apron,” Ray answers, and is off.  
  
Turns out the call is from his sauté guy, Walt, who has a bad case of the stomach flu. Since Walt’s generally not in the habit of calling out, and since it’s a bad idea to let a puking guy handle food, Brad tells him not to worry about it. The problem is, however, that _nobody_ he calls wants to come in, not even for the extra money. Gabe’s making up some excuse about needing to visit his grandma, which is Gabe code for “I’m too hungover to work.” Rudy’s off on a power walk or something, or so his wife says. Eric tells him to suck his cock ‘cause he just worked nine days in a row and he wouldn’t do it if Megan Fox herself rested her knees on the rubber floor mat and blew him to kingdom come.   
  
Finally, Brad realizes he’s just going to have to work the sauté station himself. It’s not a huge hardship or anything; he really loves jumping in and helping out every so often. It keeps him sharp, he thinks, and he works just as hard as the rest of them do when he’s in the kitchen, so they don’t have any reasons to bitch. Brad puts on an apron and grabs a couple of clean side towels, then heads out of the office to start doing inventory on what he’ll need for the lunch rush. Probably more fucking alfredo sauce, he thinks morosely. Why grown-ups think that fettucine alfredo is anything more than glorified macaroni and cheese is beyond him.   
  
Four hours later, when they’re totally slammed – Brad refuses to admit that they’re in the weeds, because he is _never_ in the weeds, nope, not him – Brad is regretting his decision to not bully someone into working the sauté station. He’s practically sweating to death, and running out of par-cooked pasta, and James is slammed trying to get the LTO sets for burgers and sandwiches out because they’ve already gone through two whole trays, so Brad isn’t really sure what he’s going to do if one more fucktard orders the Cajun chicken penne. The only thing keeping him from completely losing his shit is Ray at the grill station next to him, flipping chicken breasts and burgers and steaks like some kind of idiot savant, keeping up with the rest of them beautifully despite never having worked in this particular kitchen before. Ray’s also screeching Avril Lavigne at the top of his lungs and making everyone laugh like hell. Brad is beyond thrilled when the tickets stop coming in at such a breakneck pace; the last official lunch order is put into the POS at 2:58 PM.  
  
Of course, it’s for an order of Cajun fucking chicken penne. Brad’s lucky he has one more portion of penne left. Otherwise, he thinks he’d probably take Tim’s brulee torch out into the dining room and spray the fuck out of whatever idiot wants to eat that crap at 3 in the goddamn afternoon.  
  
He’s got the almost-cooked chicken sliced and in the pan with a little big of cognac, and sets it on fire by tilting the pan into the flame, just a little bit. Brad never does it away from himself like you’re supposed to, and he’ll probably eventually wind up regretting it someday, but god _damn_ does it look awesome. The cognac goes up with a big ‘fwoomp’, and Brad resists the urge to make a nerdy _Lord of the Rings_ joke.   
  
Brad shakes the pan a little to get the liquor evenly distributed, and almost drops it all over himself when he feels an arm snake around his waist. He looks over and sees Ray next to him with a marshmallow – one of Tim’s homemade, preservative-free, hand-shaped marshmallows – stuck on the end of a kebab skewer.  
  
“Ray. What the fuck are you doing?” Brad’s not sure if he’s asking about the marshmallow, which Tim is going to kill Ray for stealing, and Brad knows he stole it because Tim _never_ gives them to cooks, or if he’s asking about the reason Ray’s got his arm around his waist like they’re dating again. He completely refuses to look at Poke, whose eyes he can feel boring into his back.  
  
“I wanted to make me a s’mores, man. I’m fuckin’ _hungry_ after that lunch rush. How many covers’d we do?” Ray says, grinning hugely.   
  
“About a hundred and ten, I’d say,” he answers.  
  
“One-oh-six,” yells their head waiter Evan. That OCD motherfucker’s always on top of shit, which is why Brad likes him.  
  
Ray whistles, long and low. “ _Damn,_ sucka. Hey, the flame went out!”  
  
“Of course it did. All the liquor burned off. Why don’t you go toast that fucking thing over the grill like a normal person and stop invading my personal space?” Brad says.  
  
“Since when the fuck have I ever been normal?” is Ray’s only reply.  
  
“Point, Ray. Seriously, why is your arm around me like a major faggot?”  
  
He shrugs. “Maybe I like the smell of swamp-ass and two-day-old fish.”  
  
“Maybe you should go back home to your mom, then.” Brad grins down at him.  
  
“Nah, I thought I’d get my daily dose of pussy from you.”  
  
Brad can practically feel Poke having a fit behind him. “Poke, go take a smoke break or something and leave us alone, will you?”  
  
“Gladly. Jesus fucking Christ, the bullshit I put up with,” Poke mumbles as he yanks off his apron and stalks outside. He lights a cigarette before he’s even out the back door, the scent of which prompting a mass exodus of cooks and dishwashers and servers.   
  
Nobody even asks Brad if they can go outside; they just do it. Everyone except Ray, who’s still standing there holding that ridiculous kebab skewer with Tim’s marshmallow speared on the end of it, his arm still around Brad’s waist. But instead of slackening and eventually dropping when he realizes the show’s over, as Brad’s expecting, Ray’s arm tightens.  
  
“You know, I really missed you,” he says, looking up at Brad. “I wasn’t kidding before when I said California sucked because you weren’t there.”  
  
Brad can feel a tightening in the pit of his stomach; it’s a familiar sort of feeling, the kind he used to get before a practicum. He swallows a couple of times. “Yeah? Then how come you didn’t ask me to fly out and see you?”  
  
“Because I knew I’d come back someday,” A funny little smile tugs at the corners of Ray’s lips.  
  
“That’s a lousy fucking answer,” Brad points out.  
  
“Yeah, it is,” he admits. “But it’s all I’ve got.”  
  
Brad grins a little. “Oh, I think you might have _something_ else.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Brad lets go of the sauté pan and flicks off the heat – table 12 can wait another fucking minute for their stupid pasta order – so that way it won’t burn while he turns to face Ray and kisses the fucking shit out of him.  
  
Amazingly, Ray doesn’t drop the skewer.


End file.
